A classic biography of Jefferson. Among the many contributions of this authoritative study was Malone's inclusion in each volume of a detailed timeline of Jefferson's activities and frequent travels in his life. Malone's volumes were widely praised for their lucid and graceful writing style, for their rigorous and thorough scholarship, and for their attention to Jefferson's evolving constitutional and political thought. Later, however, some reviewers faulted Malone, believing he had a tendency to adopt Jefferson's own perspective and thus to be insufficiently critical of his occasional political errors, faults, and lapses. Some said that he was biased in favor of Jefferson and against his principal adversaries Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and John Marshall. Also, during the period in which this was being written, historical studies of slavery and its influences in the United States expanded dramatically. Some academics said that Malone did not adequately treat Jefferson's life as a slaveowner and the paradoxes inherent in his views on liberty and slavery.--Adapted from Wikipedia, 11/2016.

Beginning with the famous opening to the Declaration of Independence ("When in the course of human events..."), almost all of Thomas Jefferson's writings include creative, stylistically and philosophically complex references to time and history. Although best known for his "forward-looking" statements envisioning future progress, Jefferson was in fact deeply concerned with the problem of coming to terms with the impending loss or fragmentation of the past. As Hannah Spahn shows in Thomas Jefferson, Time, and History, his efforts to promote an exceptionalist interpretation of the United States as the first nation to escape from the "crimes and calamities" of European history were complicated both by his doubts about the outcome of the American experiment and by his skepticism about the methods and morals of eighteenth-century philosophical history. Spahn approaches the conundrum of Jefferson's Janus-faced, equally forward- and backward-oriented thought by discussing it less as a matter of personal contradiction and paradox than as the expression of a late Newtonian Enlightenment, in a period between ancient and modern modes of explaining change in time. She follows Jefferson in his creation of an influential narrative of American and global history over the course of half a century, opening avenues into a temporal and historical imagination that was different from ours, and offering new assessments of the solutions Jefferson and his generation found (or failed to find) to central moral and political problems like slavery.

The concluding volume of this six part biography focuses on Jefferson's accomplishments after his retirement from the presidency

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER Following Thomas Jefferson from the drafting of the Declaration of Independence to his retirement in Monticello, Joseph J. Ellis unravels the contradictions of the Jeffersonian character. He gives us the slaveholding libertarian who was capable of decrying mescegenation while maintaing an intimate relationship with his slave, Sally Hemmings; the enemy of government power who exercisdd it audaciously as president; the visionarty who remained curiously blind to the inconsistencies in his nature. American Sphinx is a marvel of scholarship, a delight to read, and an essential gloss on the Jeffersonian legacy.

Final draft of the 4th volume in Malone's multi-volume biography, Jefferson & his time.

Drawing heavily from the original letters and papers of Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries, this resource chronicles the world of the Founding Father who wrote the Declaration of Independence. From his early critiques of the colonial policies of Great Britain and King George III to his governmental roles as the first secretary of state, the minister to France, and the third president of the United States, Jefferson's groundbreaking achievements are described in historical context. The contradictions in Jefferson's character--most notably the fact that he owned 600 slaves in his lifetime despite penning the immortal phrase "all men are created equal"--are also explored, giving kids a full picture of this skilled politician. Creative activities that invite children to experience Jefferson's colonial America include designing a Palladian window, building a simple microscope, painting a "buffalo robe," and dancing a reel.

"This is, by far, in my estimation, the most important, most perfectly balanced, most elegantly written, and most potentially useful such collection of historical essays I have seen since Beeman, Botein, and Carter II, Beyond Confederation, back in the 1970's."-John Lauritz Larson, Purdue University, author of The Market Revolution in America Although there are many good and important books on Jefferson, this collection serves a real need by gathering some of the best of the current scholarship into a single and relatively brief and readable volume."-Cynthia Kierner, George Mason University, author of Scandal at Bizarre: Rumor and Reputation in Jefferson's America Thomas Jefferson's ideas have been so important in shaping the character and aspirations of the United States that it has proven impossible to think about the state of the nation at almost any moment without implicit or explicit reference to his words and actions. In similar fashion, each generation has understood Jefferson in the context of the central issues of its time. Jefferson has, for better or for worse, been a man for all seasons. The essays in this collection seek to update and reevaluate several key aspects of Jefferson's attitudes and policies in light of the newest research and at the same time take care to consider his ideas about such controversial topics as race, gender, and religion in the context of his own time and place. Simultaneously, the contributing authors analyze the relevance of Jefferson for our own age, conscious of how contemporary judgments about slavery, religion, and Native Americans, for example, shape our coming to terms with the nation's history. Here is no simple search for a usable past, but instead a tough-minded but fair examination of a complex man who in fundamental ways represents both the promise and the problems of the American experience. John B. Boles is William P. Hobby Professor of History at Rice University and the editor of the Journal of Southern History. Randal L. Hall is Adjunct Associate Professor of History at Rice University and managing editor of the Journal of Southern History.